It is well known in the telecommunications industry to route a signaling message through a signaling network using a technique that is commonly referred to as global title translation (GTT). In general terms, GTT is a routing procedure by which the destination signaling point associated with a signaling message is determined from digit information present in the message. Examples of such digit information include, a dialed 800 number, a calling card number, and a mobile subscriber identification number. Digit information may also include a signaling point identifier, such as a network entity address associated with a short message service center (SMSC) or other network signaling point. The destination signaling point may be a service control point (SCP) or application service node, which hosts telecommunications applications or services such as an 800/toll free database, a calling name database, a line information database, a home location register, an equipment identity register, an authentication center, a presence server, a voting server, an SMSC, a multimedia message center, a session initiation protocol (SIP) proxy or SIP re-direct server, etc. A destination signaling point may reside in a signaling system 7 (SS7) signaling network and be accessible via an SS7/message transfer part (MTP) signaling link, or the destination signaling point may reside in an Internet protocol (IP) network and be accessible via an IP signaling link.
A signal transfer point (STP) may perform global title translation and load share translated messages among multiple mated (i.e., identically provisioned) SCP nodes. As illustrated in FIG. 1, an STP 100, which includes a GTT database 102, may receive a signaling message from SS7 network 104, perform GTT processing on the message, and route the message to one of the identically provisioned SMSC nodes A-F. In this example, each SMSC node is effectively assigned a load sharing weight (LSW) value, which specifies the relative percentage of signaling message traffic that each SMSC node is to receive from STP 100. SMSC A is assigned an LSW value of 30, SMSC B is assigned an LSW value of 10, SMSC C is assigned an LSW value of 10, SMSC D is assigned an LSW value of 30, SMSC E is assigned an LSW value of 10, SMSC F is assigned an LSW value of 10.
Weighted load sharing techniques such as that described above and illustrated in FIG. 1 are widely used in the telecommunications industry and are described in telecommunications industry standards (e.g., Telcordia Technologies Generic Requirements, GR-82-CORE, Issue 5, December 2001). However, prior implementations of such standardized weighted load sharing approaches suffer from limitations that arise during various modes of failure in the system. More particularly, prior weighted load sharing solutions do not provide network operators with the flexibility to reallocate signaling message traffic in response to network anomalies in a manner that most efficiently utilizes available resources and maintains a high degree of system reliability.
Accordingly, in light of the difficulties associated with efficiently load sharing signaling messages among multiple signaling destinations during sub-nominal network operating conditions, there exists a need for improved methods, systems, and computer program products for load sharing signaling messages in a telecommunications network.